Republican wackaloon Rep. Paul Broun thinks that evolution and the big bang theory are lies told by librul soshulists to keep righteous dudes from allowing God to go traipsing through the tulips of their hearts.
He is a doctor — a medical one! — and he serve on the Congressional science and technology committee because that’s clearly where he belongs, mirite?!
[read full post at ABLC]
Joseph Nobles
He’s not just a medical doctor, he has a BS in chemistry from the University of Georgia-Athens.
Mr Stagger Lee
I am going to ask this question, that I asked this morning, how can any Southerner with working brain cells, not just progressive Southerners can live down there and not go and off themselves with a shotgun( In dealing with these yo-yos)? I guess good bourbons and good football. One more thing when I hear of a place that has the words Liberty Baptist, you know rarely anything good comes from that place.
Patricia Kayden
What percentage of the American population agrees with Broun’s views?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/americans-believe-in-creationism_n_1571127.html
Not sure if he’s so out of the American mainstream.
Keith G
@Mr Stagger Lee: While there are idiots everywhere, it’s easy to have a life where contact with such craziness is minimal – and let’s face it, in some places down here life is pretty fantastic (says this transplanted Buckeye…”O-H”)
Corner Stone
@Keith G: He’s talking about places other than Texas.
Mike in NC
Deranged scum.
jwb
@Patricia Kayden: ok, that’s very depressing. I wonder what caused that 6% shift from theistic evolution to creationism in the past year. The GOP primary?
Mr Stagger Lee
@Keith G: True dat, I guess that this transplanted Buckeye and enjoying the Nebraska game, has kind of been blessed living in Puget Sound, though working on a military base and a military town we have some of them too.
Eric U.
@Mr Stagger Lee: my mother lives in Lynchburg, which is being taken over by Liberty Baptist. It really isn’t so horrible, although being around that many home-schooled kids can be a little scary.
Narcissus
These people remind me of the bigfoot guy from Close Encounters.
“I saw Bigfoot once! 1951, Sequoia National Park. Had a foot on him thirty-seven inches, heel to toe. Made a sound I would not want to hear twice in my life.”
mbss
rep broun also denies that “the big bang theory” is an actual tv show.
wasabi gasp
Gotta admire his mad believing skillz.
RedKitten
The internet actually makes it a little easier on them. A good friend of mine is a military wife. She’s very liberal, and is a historian and an all-around damn smart cookie. They’re currently stationed in…Kansas. I think the only thing keeping her sane is the ability to talk to sane people online.
Joseph Nobles
@Mr Stagger Lee: I was born and raised in Alabama. I spent two years in Indiana (no great improvement), and then lived in Alabama, Tennessee, and now Texas for the rest of my life. My answer is mainly large cities and the Internet. In Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, and now Dallas (all four being blue refuge cities in angry red states), you find that people have to learn to live with “socialism,” because there is no other way to have a city. Along with that, the Internet is just a downright necessity.
Oddly enough, the place of my birth is another source of strength. I come from West Alabama – Demopolis, to be exact – and if you look at voting by counties or districts, Demopolis is smack dab in the middle of a deep blue streak that runs through the middle of Alabama. My grandfather was both an elder in his hometown Church of Christ and a union organizer for the IBEW.
So one way or another, Southern Democrats make do.
Violet
Don’t forget the Texas GOP took critical thinking out of the platform so kids wouldn’t challenge what their parents taught them
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Has the temp dropped in your neck of the woods? At 75 ish its still too warm in Montrose.
Old Dan and Little Ann
George Carlin covers this with his maniac farm in Utah. Just for the maniacs and crazy people.
Richard
It would be pretty funny if this creationist doctor ended up getting struck down by drug-resistant superbug, the product of Darwinian natural selection.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: We’re at 71 and looking to be in 55-ish range by early morning.
Thankfully.
Chris
@Patricia Kayden:
Oh, he’s not. Evolution is very much a right down the middle issue for the country. Which is one of the main things feeding my “this country is fucked” moments. We’re really no better informed than these silly third worlders we laugh at because they believe sex with a virgin will cure AIDS, as a country.
Alison
@Joseph Nobles: I’ll say it’s BS.
ba-dum ching! I’m here all week!
But seriously, good fucking cripes…
Richard
If you insist on being a Biblical literalist, not only do you have to accept the notion that the world was created in 6 days, you must also believe that the world is flat and that the stars and planets are attached to a giant vault that is supported by mountain pillars. Someone should ask this moron if he believes that too. If he says no, then he should be told that he is a heretic.
Mark S.
I can’t wait to find out. I hope he’s publishing it soon.
Svensker
I think I just saw Cole in the WVA endzone cheering and wearing a straw hat. Pretty sure.
redshirt
I know why they picked Evolution as the focus of their hatred, but still I am fascinated by it, in a deeply depressing way. Why would some “Joe the Plumber” type get fired up one way or the other by Evolution in a normal world? But when it becomes one of the “Tenets of The Faith”, anyone in the Tribe is honorbound to support it vigorously. And that’s all this anti-evolution nonsense is: Tribalism. Amazing, really.
I wish they’d picked the “Theory!” of gravity – go ahead and pick a theory.
raven
He doesn’t believe this shit. It all about appealing to the morons he represents.
Violet
@Keith G: @Corner Stone: Do you two live in the same place?
maya
But look at the bright side – They can all pick a mean banjo.
Corner Stone
@Violet:
One wishes, but he’s too high and mighty for little ole me.
gwangung
@redshirt: They’ve ALWAYS had evolution as part of their hatred.
Violet
And since everyone is talking about the internet, I just got back from talking down older relatives who have been told via “very reliable emails from some people they trust” (wingnut chain letters) that “once Obamacare goes into effect in 2014, there will be no cancer screenings for people 75 and older.”
I looked it up on my phone and debunked it right there, but I don’t know if it took. Me and Snopes.com versus forwarded emails ostensibly from some judge somewhere spouting scary stuff about Obamacare. I think I lost that battle.
Corner Stone
@redshirt:
Actually, Gravity may not be the theory you want to set your cap to.
Personally, I think we don’t understand gravity very well.
hilts
Paul Broun has a track record of flaming douchebaggery
“There may not have been any outbursts on the floor during Tuesday’s State of the Union address, but one Republican Member didn’t waste any time accusing President Barack Obama of being a Constitution-hating socialist. Rep. Paul Broun live-tweeted during Obama’s hourlong speech but left a string of largely unremarkable comments. Toward the close of the address, however, the Georgia Republican fired off a tweet that didn’t really line up with the evening’s bipartisan spirit. “Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism,” Broun wrote under his handle, @RepPaulBrounMD… Broun spokeswoman Debbee Keller told Roll Call that her boss tweets about the address every year from the confines of his office, instead of attending the event in the House chamber. “Out of respect, he watches the president’s speech from his office and uses his desktop computer.”
h/t http://www.rollcall.com/news/Paul-Broun-Obama-Believes-In-Socialism-202813-1.html
Corner Stone
Holy Jeebus what are the Oregon Ducks wearing?
Joseph Nobles
@Corner Stone: Still, gravity is a great way of showing the difference between scientific fact (gravity exists) and scientific theory (this is our most rigorous model for understanding how gravity works). It works exactly the same way for the fact and theory of evolution.
Violet
@Violet: I misspoke. They said, “There will be no more cancer TREATMENTS for people 75 and older.” Not screenings. As one of the older relatives said, “Older people are expendable.”
Fluke bucket
@raven: Amen.
Mark S.
@redshirt:
They’ve always hated evolution, but most Bible-slappers don’t have much trouble with the Big Bang.
The evolution stuff kind of makes sense, because Jesus needed to die on the cross to make up for Adam and Eve eating an apple. For some reason this redeemed us to Jesus’s insane father, who is also the same person as he is.
Oh wait, that shit doesn’t make any fucking sense. I think the only reason Scientology seems so obviously like bullshit is that it’s only 50 years old instead of 2,000.
GregB
The idiocy of the whole death panel argument flies in the face of the whole ‘Democrats’ want dependent citizens to vote for them’ meme.
What is the point of creating moochers and leeches to support you if you are going to Soylent Green them in their voting prime?
Corner Stone
@Joseph Nobles: Let’s not get started on gravity and the concept of time.
redshirt
@Mark S.: Like I said, I know exactly why Evolution is their particular science hobby horse – Darwin himself had to deal with this shit before he even published. It’s a direct shot against Christian theology, and specifically the significance of Jesus. Not that the theory of Evolution has anything to say about religion at all, but from a wingnut Christian perspective, if the Bible is wrong about the beginnings of humanity, then it’s wrong about everything (as the myth of Jesus depends heavily on the myth of the Garden of Eden).
From a science perspective, evolution is actually one of the better understood grand theories. I mentioned gravity earlier cuz frankly there are multiple accepted theories of gravity out there, and no one would truly say they understand what it is beyond a shadow of doubt. It’s a mystery.
? Martin
@Mark S.:
It’s impossible to marinade in something and not absorb at least some of it. Even a lot of atheist tend to treat Scientology and Mormonism as crazier than plain-jane Protestant Christianity simply because they haven’t internalized as much of it.
But when you step back and really think about it, nuclear bombs in volcanos releasing sprits isn’t any crazier than a 100,000 people being beamed into the sky leaving everyone else to fight a global armageddon with the devil. Suggesting the garden of eden is in Missouri is pretty out there though. It’s a nice state and all, but it’s not that nice.
? Martin
Campus officer kills naked freshman at South Alabama
Now, unarmed naked teenager shot in the chest, dies.
So, we give the police these nonlethal weaponry like tazers. Instead of using them here, when nonlethal force would have been perfectly useful and appropriate, police instead use them to subdue grandmothers in traffic stops, and here they just shoot the dude in the chest.
TooManyJens
Anybody want to help with this?
http://www.change.org/petitions/house-leaders-establish-knowledge-standards-for-members-of-the-house-science-committee
Please don’t sign; it’s a draft.
I feel like the action I’m calling for needs to be more concrete, but I’m tired and I can’t figure out what it should. They’re never going to make members of Congress sit down and take a test before they get to join a committee. I know this. But I want to show that we actually care about whether the people on the Science Committee know jack shit about science.
Joseph Nobles
@redshirt:
Sad, isn’t it? No one (including Broun and his fellow religionists) bases their faith on the need for the parable of the prodigal son being literally true, and no one denies the moral lesson of that parable simply because it never actually happened. But for these guys, the two contradictory creation stories in Genesis must be crammed together and declared 100% true or the whole faith falls.
I remember a theology class I had in graduate school where the instructor allowed that maybe, just maybe, the first one in Genesis was a myth, but the second one did actually happen. I was already hanging onto theism by my fingernails at that point, but that was the final straw. This fool could see past the six days of full creation, but still wanted the epistomological tree and the talking snake? Done and done.
Violet
@TooManyJens: I’d make it clear that if we don’t put people with scientific knowledge in those positions, we risk falling behind and no longer being a leader. Be specific in that regard.
fuckwit
It’s much, much easier to lie than to tell the truth.
The reason is: it’s easy to make up a lie, but very, very, very hard to prove the truth.
This is the general phenomenon of the scientific method: uncertainty is the default. we just don’t know. To really KNOW something—to prove it conclusively—is very, very hard.
Our political world, and everything in it, has to deal with much more scientific things these days—there is so much complexity, and thus so much uncertainty. Economics in today’s world is complex. Meteorology and climate science is complex—in the literal sense, complexity in a mathematical sense. Technology has become wildly complex. All these things, our political systems need to deal with.
Amidst this uncertainty, it’s so easy to just make up a bullshit story. Hey, it could be true, anything is possible! Sure, proving it is hard, but amidst all the uncertainty, people don’t demand proof. That’s the fatal error.
But how can you respond to that? Proving the bullshit false is very, very hard. How do you prove a negative? You can’t really. So the liar gets away with lying, or not even lying, just totally making shit up.
People who are used to a pre-scientific world—a simple world where truths could be actually determined—are adrift in the scientific, modern world. And our politics are very much pre-scientific. That’s what’s wrong.
That’s what we’re seeing now with RMoney’s lies, with the creationists, with the climate deniers, with the economic supply-side voodoo-ists.
It’s all part of the same problem.
I’m not sure what to do about it.
Todd
Meh. MDs are just organic plumbers/electricians/HVAC guys. They’re not much.
TooManyJens
@Violet: Thanks, I’ll put that in.
redshirt
@Todd: LOL. Yep, you’re gonna have to replace that wiring. Not gonna be cheap…
Joseph Nobles
@efgoldman: The kid was a high school wrestler just enrolled, so a drunken pledge prank sounds like a good guess. Another story says the kid got up after being shot and tried to come at the officer again before falling down and dying, so some kind of drug would have to be involved here.
This actually sounds exactly like the kind of situation a tazer would have been justified, from what I’ve read. What a waste.
mandarama
@Mr Stagger Lee:
I was born and raised in Mississippi, right across the line from Demopolis, AL where Mr. Nobles hails from. So my answer to your question: have working-poor parents who fuss at you nonstop about how you are going to college if they have to kill you to get you there, go to college even if it does half-kill you to pay for it, and move away to a nice blue city even if it’s still in the red SE. That’s what my sibs and I did. Of course, we didn’t have the Internet, or even a lot of sit-down restaurants or stores, so there was quite a bit of motivation to haul ass even without the open racism, sexism, and general refusal to emulate Jesus’ teachings instead of recite them.
I have a friend who has chewed me out very often by saying, “It never gets better when people like you leave.” I mean, I only went so far as Tennessee…but believe it or not, that is a mighty big difference for only 6 hours’ drive time.
ETA: plus, I married a New Englander. We are convinced that we did not actually grow up in the same country, despite what textbooks tell us.
Delia
@? Martin:
The book of Revelation may have been around for a couple of thousand years, but at the time it was written, readers understood that it belonged to a tradition of highly symbolic religious writing that appeared in Jewish (and then Christian) history at times of persecution, in this case, Nero & Co. The idea of the Rapture doesn’t appear explicitly in the text and was developed as a doctrine in the 19th Century. This is a case of people getting dumber over time.
redshirt
@Joseph Nobles: Precisely. And as such, I’ve been waiting for the Wingnuts to attack the Plate Tectonic theory, since that ain’t in the Bible either and contradicts the Creation myth to a degree.
Violet
@TooManyJens: Framing it in an “essential for global competitiveness” way makes it more compelling to some folks who might be less convinced by other arguments.
Mark S.
@redshirt:
Plate Tectonic theory is a lie straight from the pit of hell!
redshirt
@Mark S.: Verily! God did not build this world in 6 days only to make it slide around like some liberal politician! Or Painted Jezebel. What a joke these Atheist/Liberals/Satan Worshippers would pull on us Godly folk!
Warren
@? Martin: Sounds like someone took “Come at me, bro!” a little too literally.
redshirt
@Warren: How can you not? It’s genetic.
pseudonymous in nc
The GA legislature has gerrymandered the congressional district around Athens to ensure that a fucknut like Broun gets elected; Athens-Clarke County used to be represented by John Barrow, who’s a Blue Dog (and will probably lose his new district in November after yet another gerrymander) but more representative of the city than Broun, who may be a UGA alum but belongs to the surrounding bits of GA where edjumacation is suspicious.
karen marie
I’m thinking there’s something hinky went on with Paul Broun’s medical career. His wiki page doesn’t say anything about his practice other than “starting in 2002 (!?) he maintained a practice based solely on house calls.”
Other interesting factlets about Congressman Broun: He’s been married four times and the “self-described fiscal hawk” blew through $1.1 million of his $1.4 million annual office budget in the first six months of 2008 in order to not lose the primary for reelection, leaving only $300,000 for the last six months of his first term. “His chief of staff resigned, and his communications director took a leave of absence.”
Oops!
Kyle
There are ignorant fantasist douchebags like this all over the country, but only in the South do they exist in such concentrations and with sufficient social acceptance as to elect one of their king-stupid kind to Congress.
I’m sick of sharing a country with these dumbass knuckledraggers and their subsidized ignorance.
owlbear1
Want to watch their heads explode?
Tell them, “I am Jesus Christ returned and you obviously missed the point I was trying to make.”
Joseph Nobles
@redshirt: I’ve seen creationists explain Plate Tectonics as a product of the Great Flood. The flood happened when God allowed the water above the firmament to cover the more perfect sphere God created (and thus easier to cover with the available water). Then He cracked open the crust of the Earth, distributed the parts all around (raising the land over the current water level), and today’s plate movement is the leftover momentum from Him doing that.
So who says they don’t believe in science?
the dude
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
I lived for a few years in Utah County (claimed to be “the most Republican county in the most Republican state”) and although the people there were deeply conservative socially and economically, there was surprising acceptance of evolution and science. BYU does some great work in paleontology, for example.
I think the LDS position is that Gawd set everything in motion so science is perfectly compatible with religion ( unless the topic is climate change, however …)
Darkrose
@Corner Stone:
True, but I’d love to suggest to Rep. Broun that if he thinks gravity is just a theory, he can test it by jumping off something really tall.
Triassic Sands
@Joseph Nobles:
BS is right!
I’d prefer he tested it by jumping into a very deep hole — no cleanup.
StarStorm
@raven:
But as these are the ideas he is pushing and bringing to the table, it doesn’t particularly matter if he believes in them or not, now DOES IT?
StarStorm
@raven:
But as these are the ideas he is pushing and bringing to the table, it doesn’t particularly matter if he believes in them or not, now DOES IT?
Bex
@Violet: Those emails must be burning up the tubes because I heard last week that anyone over 80 would only be kept “comfortable” under Obamacare. I see the age has been lowered to 75 now…
gelfling545
@efgoldman: Then perhaps it’s just as well that they stopped practicing medicine and went into another field.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mark S.:
I’ve seen it argued that that’s the big reason for what persecution did happen to the early Christians. Disasters happen, and the crazy people with the new religion are obvious targets for scapegoating, especially in an era where the closest thing they had to science was still riddled with magical thinking.
Violet
@Bex: The sad thing is, under the Ryan plan, seniors would be lucky if they were even kept comfortable. But who needs messy things like facts?
thalarctos
Big Bang theory is from the pits of hell? Funny, that. One of the first developers of Big Bang cosmology was Georges Lemaitre, who was a Belgian physicist–and a Roman Catholic priest!
Matt McIrvin
@Corner Stone: General relativity works really, really well in a wide domain of application (to the extent that the theory is crucial to the operation of GPS). The lack of understanding comes in when we move way outside of that domain, to really tiny subatomic distances or the very beginning of the universe, and somehow getting it to work as a quantum theory (which no one is quite sure how to do, or rather which way is the right way) becomes important.
I very much doubt that well-established theory is going to get tossed out the window, though, any more than Newton has been in the more restricted but still vast domain where his stuff works.
Matt McIrvin
@thalarctos: Yes, and one of the lines that the “Big Bang never happened” cranks like to use is actually that the Big Bang theory, with its finite lifetime and sudden cataclysmic beginning, is somehow an artifact of the Judeo-Christian creation myth.